BookTweets

BookTalk event, 30th October 2017: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time

Following on from our last event celebrating Harry Potter’s 20th anniversary, the next BookTalk of the year will continue the focus on contemporary children’s literature with a discussion of Mark Haddon’s prizewinning novel The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time.

BookTalk will be joined by expert speakers from across Cardiff University to discuss the main themes of this novel:

Zoe Williams (Wales Autism Research Centre, Cardiff University) will talk about her research on the social cognition abilities of young people with autism and co-occurring conditions;

Dr Des Fitzgerald (School of Social Sciences, Cardiff University), author of Tracing Autism, will look at how scientists talk about autism;

Dr Sarah Barrett (Wales Autism Research Centre, Cardiff University) will focus on the behaviour and imagination of people with autism spectrum disorder, as well as considering how ASD is represented in the media.

Dr David McGonigle (School of Psychology, Cardiff University), will focus on sensory processing from objective and subjective perspectives.

The speakers will present and there will be plenty of opportunity for audience questions and discussion. To make the most of the session, you may like to read or re-read The Curious Incidence of the Dog in the Night-Time.

About the Author

Mark Haddon was born in Northampton in 1962. He graduated from Oxford University in 1981, returning later to study for an M.Sc. in English Literature at Edinburgh University. He then undertook a variety of jobs, including work with children and adults with mental and physical disabilities. He also worked as an illustrator for magazines and a cartoonist for New Statesman, The Spectator, Private Eye, the Sunday Telegraph and TheGuardian (for which he co-wrote a cartoon strip). In 2003 his novel, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, was published and has been hugely successful. It is the first book to have been published simultaneously in two imprints – one for children and one for adults. It has won a string of prestigious awards, including the 2003 Whitbread Book of the Year. His second novel, A Spot of Bother, was published in 2006 and shortlisted for the 2006 Costa Novel Award. Mark Haddon teaches creative writing for the Arvon Foundation and Oxford University.